Imposed Peace or Imposition? A Proposal for Palestine

Hanley, Delinda C., Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Longtime activist Jerome Segal, founder of the Jewish Peace Lobby and senior research scholar at the University of Maryland Center for International and Security Studies, addressed the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine March 13, 2002 with a proposal that the U.N. Security Council exercise its legal authority over the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem by imposing a solution. The U.S. was not playing a leadership role, he argued, and the situation in Israeli-occupied Palestine was growing so grim that immediate action was necessary.

The action Segal advocated, however, was somewhat problematic. The U.N., he argued, should--after consultations with Israel--force peace on the region by settling boundary disputes, the status of Jerusalem, and the problems of Jewish settlements and Palestinian rights of return or compensation. In other words, according to Segal, the U.N. should consult with Israel, but simply impose the resulting solution on the Palestinians.

The U.N., of course, already has imposed a plan on Palestine, in the form of 1947's U.N. Resolution 181 (II) partitioning Palestine. That resolution took Zionist concerns into account while ignoring Palestinian concerns. Half of historic Palestine was given to Zionist Jews for a homeland--thus creating the present dilemma. …

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